If you’re losing your hair, you’re not alone. Hair loss is more common than you might think: 18 percent of men under 29 have moderate to advanced hair loss, and that number jumps to 53 percent for men in their 40s. Hair loss affects at least 50 percent of women by age 50.
From your scalp to your stress load to the state of your hormones, your hair reflects what’s going on inside of you.
“Scalp health is a big problem,” says hair transplant surgeon Dr. Alan J. Bauman, “and we know now that there’s a direct link between scalp health and the inflammation (in the body) that’s going on. The hair fiber is dead but the follicle is alive, and when there’s inflammation going on in and around that area the follicle just doesn’t perform as well. So, scalp health is really important.”
And say bye-bye to the painful “plugs” you may have heard about before. Dr. Bauman’s sophisticated procedures can be undetectably natural with minimal downtime.
Dr. Sophia Kogan conducts research and develops nutraceutical solutions for hair thinning and loss.
“Women go through a tremendous amount of stress in relationship to their hair, even more so than men because men sort of expect to thin,” Dr. Kogan says. She explains that the experience of hair loss for women often has a specific shame and guilt associated with it, too.
Stress effects your hair throughout your entire lifetime, but during prolonged periods of high stress it’s even worse. When you’re suffering from physical and/or emotional stress, the body pulls its resources to preserve its life internally, not hair growth. Since everyone experiences stress differently, it’s generally important to take time in your day for something that brings you into a flow state, Dr. Kogan suggests. Calming your nervous system plays an important role in stress management.
If you enjoy this special episode with Dr. Bauman and Dr. Kogan, listen to their full Bulletproof Radio podcasts about how to improve your hair health:
Biohacking Baldness: The Hair Episode for Everyone – Dr. Alan Bauman with Dave Asprey – #727
- Dr. Bauman treats hair loss, thinning and restoration. He founded Bauman Medical nearly 25 years ago. He’s a board-certified hair restoration physician and hair transplant surgeon who has treated more than 30,000 patients and performed more than 10,000 hair transplant procedures. He’s one of a select group of physicians worldwide who’s achieved certification from the American and International Board of Hair Restoration Surgery.
- Learn more about Dr. Bauman’s treatments for better hair: baumanmedical.com
Menopause, Stress and Female Hair Loss – Dr. Sophia Kogan with Dave Asprey – #793
- Dr. Kogan co-founded and serves as Chief Medical Advisor at Nutrafol. She’s conducted multiple research studies on women’s hair loss and thinning. The company creates supplements for women and men to decrease shedding and increase hair growth. Several of the products are designed specifically for women’s physiology.
- Learn more about Dr. Kogan’s hair wellness solutions: nutrafol.com
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Follow Along with the Transcript
Hacking Hair Follicle Function – Dr. Alan Bauman and Dr. Sophia Kogan – #844
Links/Resources
Dave Asprey Blog
- Why Hair Loss Happens and How to Regrow Hair Naturally
- The Science Behind Gray Hair and How to Hack it Naturally
- 3 Things Every Woman Should Know About Hair Loss
Bulletproof Radio
- Improve Your Hair Health With Nutraceuticals – Dr. Sophia Kogan & Dr. Tess Marshall #622
- A Holistic Approach to Hair Loss: Dr. Sophia Kogan #535
- The Real Story Behind Hair Loss and the Revolutionary Approach to Treating It – Roland Peralta – #420
Key Notes
- Dr. Kogan has a personal story here because she had hair loss due to an eating disorder and just the stress of medical training and it turns out stress and hair loss are integral, they’re linked. – 1:40
- I’m going to boil it down to a single question, why do people lose hair? – 2:15
- Genetically androgenetic alopecia is the condition that can affect both men and women but it looks different. It expresses itself different, the phenotype, how it looks in a male and female gender is going to be different. – 3:11
- We know now that there’s a direct link between scalp health and the inflammation that’s going on. – 4:06
- If you’ve already have a receding hairline and you’re hoping that the laser is going to grow back the hairline, well, that’s really not going to happen to you. – 6:20
- Genetics play a role in everything but there’s a strong component of epigenetics. For me, the stress was the epigenetic component that brought my hair loss into progression, into manifestation. – 8:10
- The main issue with minoxidil or at least in the Rogaine and the generic Rogaine varieties and even the online pharmacies is that it’s going to be pretty greasy, gooey, sometimes very irritating, messy protocol. – 11:22
- Probably one of the most exciting therapies that we have is platelet rich plasma that’s come of age really within the recent years. That’s really the workhorse of regenerative medicine. – 12:49
- When somebody has been producing cortisol over a long period of time, eventually the adrenals get fatigued and then there’s less production of cortisol so then there’s a whole other slew of issues that happens. – 14:25
- You can speed surgical healing with red light or peptides with ozone. Are there specific peptides that you use in the practice? – 16:11
- Self care is extremely important. We have to find time. It’s important. – 18:41
- Taking ashwagandha is important, but also implementing these small incremental changes in your life. You said, gratitude, meditation, yoga, even joy in itself, hobbies to sort of decrease that stress and mitigate that stress response, that’s very important. – 21:02
- Let’s talk about some of the things that women can do. And then I want to really go in on circadian biology. – 22:09
- Is there a hereditary tendency? Is it something in the family that we can identify? Mom’s side or dad’s side, it can come through both sides of the family, skip generations, skip siblings. We want to get an inventory of that. – 23:59
- Hair follicles actually have their own functional mechanisms for producing hormones, for producing cortisol. We know that in the whole body, we have the hypothalamus, it tells the pituitary gland to secrete ACTH, which tells the adrenal glands to secrete cortisol. – 25:22
- It could be once a week or every other week. There’s a lot of nuance in between, because you say, “Well, how often should you shampoo?” Well, it kind of depends on what you’re using to wash your hair. – 29:31
- Yes, hair is important. It’s going to shape our face. It’s going to make us look better, whatever, but then there’s tons of beautiful bald women out there or bald men. Don’t feel at all, shouldn’t be feeling bad or compromised or anyway different than the ones who do have hair. It’s just that it’s a great bonus, but it’s not the most important thing in life. – 30:53
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